AAVSO Legacy Stars LPVS

SET

Offline

Joined: 2010-07-23

Posted: June 26, 2012 - 8:49am

I have attached a list of the 101 Legacy Stars that are LPVS. This was prepared by Mike Simonson and I copied it from his web site. This would be a great project for the visual observers, to cover these stars as much as possible. Robert has a nice spreadsheet that he is continually adding to that has several of these stars. I believe eventually he will have them all on his spreadsheet.

Hm, only these 101 LPVs are Legacy LPVs? I thought most of the LPVs in the Bulletin are Legacy Stars. Now I can see they are just part of the AAVSO LPV Program, but not off them are legacy stars. Then this makes it easier to focus or "Adopt an LPV!" project. I'll flag the Legacy Stars on the spreadsheet...

Legacy Stars

SET

Offline

Joined: 2010-07-23

Posted: June 26, 2012 - 9:42am

Robert,

I noticed on Mike's web site that he also had a list of all the LPVs in the AAVSO program plus a list of all the binocular stars in the AAVSO program.

Mike Simonson, can you chip in here and share with us the exact difference between your Legacy Star list and your regular list.

Robert, I got the impression when this concept of Legacy Stars came up, it was 100 LPVs that have been well studied over the entire 100 year history of the AAVSO. Mike, am I correct on this?

I have also attached the 2 other lists from Mike's site on the LPVs in the AAVSO program and the Binocular stars in the AAVSO program.

Again, Mike Simonson, please add any comments you have for us.

Chris Stephan SET

Yes, you are right on the

FRF

Offline

Joined: 2010-08-09

Posted: June 26, 2012 - 9:55am

Yes, you are right on the concept of Legacy Stars, I was just not aware that there is much smaller number of Legacy LPV than LPVs in the Bulletin. But when you wrote there are only 101 Legacy LPVs I immediately checked the LPV Section site and noticed the other file of AAVSO LPV Program stars list and the Binoculat Program list.

Legacy LPVs and Program LPVs

SXN

Offline

Joined: 2010-03-12

Posted: June 26, 2012 - 3:02pm

We wanted to select stars for the AAVSO LPV Program while also creating a subset of stars we wished to encourage a diminishing number of observers to continue observing forever, no matter what - the Legacy LPVs. The Legacy LPVs are stars for which we have decades, some one hundred years or more, of data. These long-term light curves are one of the most valuable assets the AAVSO retains. Their continuation is deemed important to the future and mission of the organization.

To whittle down the list of stars in the Bulletin to a manageable number, based on some scientific criteria, Matt Templeton created spreadsheets listing the stars with the number of observations in the AID and the number of citations in the literature for each star. Our assumption being simply, if scientists were writing or reading about a star it was significant for some reason and if we had a lot of coverage the light curves could prove valuable to science. On the other hand, if we only have a smattering of data and nobody wants to know about it, the star is less likely to be of scientific importance.

(Side note: Interestingly, there are a number of stars that have a LOT of references in the literature but have none or almost no AAVSO data. Most of these turned out to be objects that are very bright in the infrared but almost imperceptible in the visual bands. Cool, huh? Get it?)

Anyway...
A couple of natural selection cut-off points arose out of the investigation, so essentially, Program stars are those stars that have at least 5,000 observations in the AID and a significant number of citations in the literature. Legacy LPVs are those stars with 15,000 observations or more and also have numerous citations in the literature.

Because the current trend is for fewer observers reporting observations on fewer stars, we want to encourage observers to follow the Legacy stars as a first priority and the Program stars as a second priority. If you still have room for more stars, have a few old friends you've been observing for a long time, or want to follow your own path, that is fine, of course. But observers, including me, have been hollering for some time for guidance based on scientific criteria as to which stars to observe, so here they are.

If you want to observe "under-observed" stars or stars that are not in the program or Legacy lists, it behooves you and science for you to consider that you are likely the only person observing these targets, and you need to supply ample coverage to create light curves demonstrating the stars long term behavior or you are really wasting your time, that could be better spent on the program stars.

For example, if you can observe an LPV with a 400 day period once a week for the next 5 years, you will have supplied the AAVSO with an interesting set of data, and you will get genuine satisfaction from being able to plot a light curve that looks like something. But that will require dedication and a long-term commitment. If you have ten sporadic observations of 20 different stars each year that only you are observing, you haven't done much more than practice skills better used on stars covered by more observers.

Legacy LPVs to be marked in the Bulletin?

FRF

Offline

Joined: 2010-08-09

Posted: June 26, 2012 - 9:55pm

Mike, I think it would be useful to mark Legacy LPVs somehow in the Bulletin. At least in the next year version, but for the customized version it can be done even this year...

OK, I'll try to observe more Legacy Stars! If they are so important, maybe the user profile can show a "Legacy Score" (number of Legacy Star-observations/number of oberservations)?

Legacy Score

FRF

Offline

Joined: 2010-08-09

Posted: June 27, 2012 - 8:03am

Good idea. But in this case we need to apply them both to Legacy LPVs and CVs.

But what about R CrB and other legacy stars not included neither in the Legacy LPVs nor in the Legacy CVs proramme? We need to keep an eye on them too.

R CrBs

wel

Offline

Joined: 2010-07-26

Posted: June 27, 2012 - 11:41am

It is certainly true that R CrB stars deserve such long-term attention. There are well-known examples which are receiving plenty of attention. However, there are also newly discovered and confirmed R CrB stars that need to have sequences defined and monitoring started! I need to work on getting some sequences defined for the brighter new discoveries. Patric Tisserand, Geoff Clayton and I will work on that in the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Doug

RCB seuences

FRF

Offline

Joined: 2010-08-09

Posted: June 27, 2012 - 12:10pm

Hi Doug,

If you give us a list which newly discovered RCB stars need sequence, the AAVSO Sequence Team will be ready to create sequence to these stars (especially if they are already included in the VSX).

Clear skies,

Robert Fidrich (FRF)

New R CrB's

HTY

Offline

Joined: 2010-07-23

Posted: June 27, 2012 - 12:42pm

wel wrote:

It is certainly true that R CrB stars deserve such long-term attention. There are well-known examples which are receiving plenty of attention. However, there are also newly discovered and confirmed R CrB stars that need to have sequences defined and monitoring started! I need to work on getting some sequences defined for the brighter new discoveries. Patric Tisserand, Geoff Clayton and I will work on that in the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Doug

It is certainly true that R CrB stars deserve such long-term attention. There are well-known examples which are receiving plenty of attention. However, there are also newly discovered and confirmed R CrB stars that need to have sequences defined and monitoring started! I need to work on getting some sequences defined for the brighter new discoveries. Patric Tisserand, Geoff Clayton and I will work on that in the coming weeks.

I was thinking that monitoring of the fainter ones would be a perfect project for AAVSONet. In my copious amounts of spare time (!!!) I was going to look through the catalog and pick out candidates but it sounds like you experts have it covered.

....Tim

Hi Tim,
Yes - almost all

wel

Offline

Joined: 2010-07-26

Posted: June 27, 2012 - 2:26pm

Hi Tim,

Yes - almost all of the new ones are listed in that paper. And, yes, it would be a perfect use of AAVSOnet monitoring.

Cheers,

Doug

re: new RCB stars

FRF

Offline

Joined: 2010-08-09

Posted: June 27, 2012 - 3:29pm

OK, Doug, I'll start with NSV 8353. It seems there is some APASS photometry available in Seqplot, so I'll prepare a sequence for you. But since NSV8353 and the other new RCB stars are not legacy stars (yet), maybe we need to start a new topic for this project. If you can select some targets you want a sequence for that would be easier for us. Thanx!

NSV 8353 sequence uploaded

FRF

Offline

Joined: 2010-08-09

Posted: July 1, 2012 - 3:53pm

The new sequence of NSV 8353 has been uploaded into the VSD, so you can plot the necessary chart for NSV 8353 with comp stars.
(Btw. this is getting offtopic, maybe we need to start a new thread for the RCB campaing?)